


Fallout

by bluefire301175



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:46:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19100020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefire301175/pseuds/bluefire301175
Summary: A few hours after the events of the reichenbach fall.





	Fallout

**Author's Note:**

> *Major trigger warning*
> 
> Heed the tags

John remembers. He remembers when that first case, his aptly named 'Study in pink', was the start of everything. Sherlock was a blaze of scorching air in his lifeless lungs. Before Sherlock there was nothing and….after…well. He remembers Sherlock asking him what he or anyone would think to write or say with the last of their life draining from them. John's automatic response was 'please god let me live' because with him meeting Sherlock he had finally gained enough self-preservation to actually mean it. 

Now, well now, he's watching the clock on the mantle. It's ticking steadily. Tracking the hours. Counting the minutes. It's 4 p.m. Approximately 6 hours, 15 minutes, and 32 seconds since he last saw his mad man alive. John hasn't taken a breath since. 

The image of him falling to the concrete. Tall, lean, dark haired mass of intellect and spirit. Beauty and grace and coiled strength all reduced to fragile bones and blood. Like dropping a priceless vase and watching it shatter. 

Except nothing like that at all.

Because Sherlock was so much more than someone's old, delicate heirloom.

John doesn't feel it, not the part where he sees blue eyes framed in red, not really. 

What he does feel is now. 

Right now. 

Where his bones are reverberating with the flashbacks of Sherlock's body breaking against the earth. 

John holds himself tightly in his sitting room chair. Trying to hold himself together while ignoring the lack of warmth in the adjacent chair. The lack of illumination where once Sherlock's words offered insight into something no one else could fathom.

God…who does this…

Who can breathe with the loss of the one thing that kept them alive…

John doesn't think he can. 

Doesn't know if he wants to.

And isn't that a massive shift.

Sherlock was the tectonic plate to the earthquake of John's heartbeat. Without him there's nothing to keep him going. The richter scale is at 0 and falling steadily.

What he feels is his composure cracking.

Feels like he does when sherlock is running ahead of him after a killer who might be too much to handle alone while John rushes to keep up with him. Like his blood is boiling and he needs to get closer to him as quickly as possible. 

John just wants to be next to him.

Always next him.

As it stands he has been sitting in this chair for the past 6 hours and he is ready to make a choice. 

It was between waiting for the world to start spinning again or going after the celestial body that housed it. 

There was never a choice at all really.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Greg had been holding Mycroft for the better part of 5 hours. Mycroft had been the one to tell him what happened at Barts. What happened to Greg's friend Sherlock. What happened to Mycroft's baby brother. 

Mycroft had looked as stricken as Greg felt.

He'd never seen this man in tears

He never wants to see it again

It felt like finding out all over again and that was probably worse.

Greg'd pulled the curtains in their room and dragged him to the bed, burying his nose into Mycroft's hair and pulling him in tight to stop the vibrations he could feel traveling down his lover's back.

Greg had never felt so lost.

In the hours since, the shaking had subsided, but he knew mycroft well enough by now to know the man didn't sleep quickly or easily. 

Especially not now.

Greg also knew they needed to start the process soon.

Inform their respective workplaces.

Christ….inform Sherlock's and mycroft's parents.

The…..the funeral parlor…

He didn't even want to think about it anymore after that line of thou-

"Greg?"

He hears his name mumbled from below. Pulling out of his thoughts he looks down at the man in his grasp.

"Yes love?"

He sees mycroft's eyes are swollen and red. Tears still running down his cheeks

"Where's John?"

Greg for all of his so called police experience could not hold a candle to this man. He hadn't even thought to ask that question even though he was the only one who's grief hadn't caught up to their body just yet.

He did, however, panic once the question settled in.

He had no answer.

"Oh god John…"  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------

It took Greg 30 minutes before he could extricate himself, find his phone, and get a small team together. As guilty as he felt about leaving Mycroft right now he knew they weren't the only ones in pain.

He'd seen the things people did in the wake of grief. Has been at the recieving end of distraught daughters and husbands and wives. 

He hoped to God this wasn't a worse case scenario.

Hoped that John was somewhere drunk and crying into a random shoulder. 

Hoped those two weren't always similar in the worst ways.

As he pulled up to baker street he notices how quiet it is. Normally he'll see at least a few people strolling about, but right now it is completely empty.

He doesn't like how ominous it feels

His team, one other officer and a medic, notice it too. He shakes his head, quieting their speculation.

They have a job to do. Either Pierce, the other officer, will be there if John gets combative or Lindsey, the medic, will be there to tend to John if he has hurt himself or…

Or..

He doesn't have time to ruminate. He walks through the front door, not surprised to find it open. He can hear Mrs. Hudson's crying from the stairs. Wants to console her but needs to check on John first. Sherlock would never forgive him if John didn't come first. 

The walk up the stairs is perfunctory. The same way he goes in when he's delivering bad news. Slow and light. Treading on sacred ground. He goes into the main sitting room. Finds it empty. 

Notices the rumpled cushions in the chair he thinks is Johns'. Wants to yell at the lack of disturbance in the other.

He has Pierce check John's room. Nothing to be found. Except John's sig on the night stand.

Greg's blood runs cold. 

He sees nothing in the kitchen either and thinks maybe he's wrong about how odd everything feels. Maybe John couldn't bear the thought of coming home and troughed off to a bar somewhere to drown it all out. 

He almost says as much when he hears something.

*creak……creak……creak….*

A rythmic rocking.

"It sounds like it's coming from the back" notes Pierce

He looks down the hall. Knows enough about the flat to know where Sherlock's bedroom is.

"Let me take a look"

He tells them to wait there. Doesn't want to expose John unnecessarily. Just in case.

As he walks closer to Sherlock's bedroom door the creaking sound is louder. Breathing out he braces himself. Imagining foetal positions and sobbing. Greg knows John is more than justified. Thinks John might even punch him for the role he played in all this.

Greg can't say he doesn't deserve it..

He opens the door slowly, hoping to give John some forewarning. 

Greg wishes he hadn't opened it at all

"No no no no no….John….  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

His bedroom didn't seem like the right place for this. It's too far away and John wants to still feel him. Still feel the way Sherlock inhabits the space like a force of nature. Like a fiery tornado.

Sherlock's room it is then…

John still has sleeping pills from his time with Ella so he grabs those along the way.

He doesn't want to draw this out longer than he has to…but the thought of a bullet feels unbalanced  
He used it to protect so much that he'd rather not use it to destroy.

So to make it right he'll go to sleep and wake up next to Sherlock again.

Just as it should be.

He walks into Sherlock's room with heavy footsteps. Sitting on the edge of the bed he takes in how foreign the room actually feels. He rarely stepped in here unless it was absolutely necessary. 

It doesn't feel any different this time either.

He places a piece of paper on the bedside table before smoothly pouring the pills into his hand and swallowing them one by one. Twenty or so should do it he thinks.

He's on the 10th before he stops and sees it. 

Sherlocks dressing gown in the corner.

The blue silk drapes itself over the corner of the bedpost like a discarded skin. It calls to him in the same way Sherlock did. All sinewed lines and deep blues. And in it he finds a small bit of inspiration. The pills are taking affect but he has a little bit of time left. 

Pushing the bed back is a seconds work and he has it just off center to the ceiling fan. It gives him enough room to tie the silk to the center, pulling it taught to test it's give.

Not much.

Good.

John takes the last of the pills before standing at the edge of the bed and tying a tight knot around his neck. 

He takes a deep breathe. 

Wishes breathing didn't hurt this much.

"I just want to catch up to you"

A final plea

He jumps.

John flies.  
\------------------------------------------

Greg staggers. 

He thought he was prepared for anything.

Sobbing, fighting, resentment, rejection

Anything but this.

The creaking starts to make a horrible kind of sense.

It's quiet save for john's body ticking against the tilt of the ceiling fan. 

He wants to look away because of how personal this is.

John hanging himself with Sherlock's dressing gown is just…

He doesn't even bother calling for his medic. Can see for himself in John's fingernails the lack of oxygen. Sees the foam on his mouth and the bottle of pills on the comforter as a form of insurance. John knew how to do this in a way where no one could save him.

In a wretched way Greg understands. With the way the elder Holmes took the loss it was easy to see how catastrophic this fallout was.

Greg almost doesn't blame him.

 

Almost.

 

He walks into the room, careful to not disturb anything. 

He sees paper on the bedside table and hopes to anything it's not what he thinks it is…

And yet the handwriting of John Watson is there and it only makes this more real.

 

_  
For whoever finds me:_

_I'm sorry that you had to be the one to find my life at the end of its' tether. I didn't mean to hurt anyone it's just…_

_I couldn't catch him from where I was._

_Couldn't catch Sherlock before he leapt from me._

_He was a comet outside of my reach and…_

_I could never be satisfied without trying to catch a glimpse of him again_

_I hope you understand_

_He'd be lost without me._

_\- John Watson  
_

 

Greg tries to stiffle the start of his sobbing.

He fails.

**Author's Note:**

> This is me focusing on a specific emotion for this. More of an obsession driven writing/characterization rather than an enjoyable one. 
> 
> I obviously don't know how the richter scale works but okay.


End file.
